TAP's A330neo milestone is good news for four African airlines

Four African airlines are high on the delivery list for Airbus’ latest aircraft – the A330neo – and today the first of the new generation widebody was delivered to Portugal’s national carrier, TAP.

The aircraft is powered by the seventh member of Rolls-Royce’s Trent family - the Trent 7000 which brings together the latest technology from the Trent XWB and combines it with the architecture from the Trent 1000 TEN and more than 50million hours of flying experience from the Trent 700.
The A330neo made its debut appearance at the Farnborough International Airshow earlier this year.
Air Mauritius will be one of the first airlines in the world to receive the A330neo when it takes delivery of its first aircraft around the year end. Further deliveries in the new year will go to Rwandair which has two on order; Air Senegal which has also ordered two and later two more will go to Uganda.
“Through continuous innovations, the A330neo, our newest widebody aircraft, will offer maximum value and efficiency to our customers and superior comfort to their passengers. This occasion marks another step forward to meeting our industry’s goal for sustainable aviation,” said Guillaume Faury, President Airbus Commercial Aircraft.
As well as the highly efficient new generation Rolls-Royce Trent 7000 engines, the A330neo features a new higher span 3D optimised wing with new sharklets fully optimised for the best aerodynamic performance. Together these advances bring a significant reduction in fuel consumption of 25 percent compared with older generation competitor aircraft of a similar size. New composite nacelles, a fully faired titanium pylon and zero-splice air inlet technology also provide the A330-900 with state-of-the-art aerodynamics and acoustics.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecasts the global airline industry net profit to be $35.5 billion in 2019, slightly ahead of the $32.3 billion expected net profit in 2018 (revised down from $33.8 billion forecast

The Moroccan Airports Authority (ONDA) partnered with National Aviation Services (NAS) to launch the first electronic gates (E-gates) at the Pearl Lounge in the Marrakech Menara Airport departures area. This is the first of its kind

Precision Air has confirmed that its flight PW 722 from Nairobi via Kilimanjaro to Mwanza operated by one of its ATR- 72 aircraft was involved in a bird strike yesterday as it was making the final approach and landing at Mwanza Airport.